Mitsuhiro Ogawa Laboratory (Medical and Biological Data Laboratory)

In recent years, fields such as "bioengineering," which studies living organisms such as humans, and "medical engineering," which studies the application of engineering in the medical field, have been attracting attention in order to improve the quality of human life.
Our laboratory primarily conducts research and education in the fields related to "humans as social animals" and "humans as living organisms." We also deal with science and technology related to human assistance and entertainment, such as welfare engineering and game science, which have developed from biomedical engineering. From a Practical learning perspective, we also work with students to develop and create hardware, software, and systems that can be used in the real world, whether it be "hardware," "software," or the integrated "embedded systems." This cultivates talent that can develop their own systems for use, rather than simply using off-the-shelf products.

The project has been nominated for the 2019 "Generation Award" category of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' "Innovation" program, a special program for creative individuals. This program supports the challenge of tackling extraordinary and ambitious ICT technology development projects that have great potential to create disruptive global value in the ICT field. Associate Professor Ogawa's technical proposal, "Silent Trading 2.0: Proposing a method for contributing to society without being a real-life enthusiast," was selected as one of the nominated projects this year. This year, 185 projects were nominated out of a total of 13,187 applications.
This proposal is about a new method of social contribution that is made possible with the support of ICT technology. Going forward, we plan to continue research toward the social implementation of this proposal.

Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications "Unusual vation" program

Non-invasive and non-destructive measurement of living organisms and substances derived from living organisms
We are conducting research to measure information on health and illness without damaging the human body. The ultimate goal is to obtain information on lifestyle-related diseases such as diabetes and hypertension without collecting blood. We are also conducting research to non-destructively measure biological substances such as blood and urine using light without using reagents. Our goal is to develop a technology for measuring blood and urine components without using expensive consumable reagents, and to develop it into a clinical testing device that can be used even in economically developing countries (Japan). We are conducting joint research with Kanazawa University with the support of the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research of the Society for the Promotion of Science).

Research on biometrics during gameplay and how to interpret them
The goal is to know what the player's body and mind are doing during the game through biometrics and their interpretation during digital gameplay. We are also trying to scientifically clarify the "interestingness of the game" by analyzing the biometric information of "during gameplay that feels interesting". Through these studies, we are aiming to develop a system that helps game designers to create "interesting games" (we are conducting research with the support of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Scientific Research Fund).